


left unanswered

by oopsabird



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Character Study, Dmitri deserved better, Gen, Post-Movie, The Shape of Water spoilers, i guess, i honestly don’t know what else to tag this it’s so short, i saw this movie yesterday and it’s invading my goddamn brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 00:50:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13399893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopsabird/pseuds/oopsabird
Summary: Giles thinks of him sometimes.The man, the one from the facility, the one with the syringe.The one who saved his life.





	left unanswered

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers for the movie
> 
> (which I have only seen once and may have misremembered in places)

Giles thinks of him sometimes.

The man, the one from the facility, the one with the syringe.

The one who saved his life.

He didn’t get in the van.

He stayed behind.

The man had looked like he might have had a kind face, when he wasn’t so busy being tense and afraid. Had a desperate, determined sort of look in his eyes.

Haunted, perhaps. By what he had seen? By what he had done?

He saved him.

And then he disappeared.

He never answered the phone, that night.

Zelda doesn’t know much about him, when everything is over and Giles finally remembers to ask. Some fella with a doctorate. Hoffstetler. Probably not his real name. Dmitri - probably a lot realer. He cared about the creature, she said. Wanted to save it.

_Dmitri._

Giles likes to think that he must have been a good man, all things considered.

Surely he must be, he has to be; he saved the creature - he saved _him_.

Giles wonders where he is now, this good man. Where he went, after he helped them set a god free.

Dmitri, with his sad, desperate eyes and his maybe-kind face.

Giles draws that face, once or twice, without even realizing that he’s doing so until the drawing is done, and Dmitri is staring back at him from the page, unrelenting. Like Elisa does in so many other drawings, but in this case equal parts haunt _ed_ as he is haunt _ing_ , instead of just the latter.

Kind face. Sad eyes.

_Who were you?_

Wherever Dmitri is now, Giles hopes it’s somewhere peaceful.

**Author's Note:**

> 50% of my brain function is making Venn diagrams where each side is one of my favourite minor characters from a thing and the middle bit where they overlap is “hyperfocus du jour” et voila, this^
> 
> probably won’t be the last thing I write on these two, but I’ve sworn to finish 5+ Wonder Woman WIP’s and literally any of my homework first (yes elri I will edit your chapter soon)
> 
> UPDATE (20/01): oh god I just realized the title is an unintentional pun on the phone thing oh god I’m so sorry


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